The distraught widow of a man who died after spending more than a year on a hospital waiting list for life-saving surgery has hit out at his treatment by health bosses.

John Clifford, a 64-year-old father of two from Lapworth, near Warwick, had reached the top of the waiting list - but by the time he was admitted to Walsgrave Hospital, in Coventry, for heart surgery last week, it was too late. He died last Wednesday.

His widow, Jean, feels they were let down by the system after initially being told her husband would have to have the vital treatment in 2000.

Mrs Clifford, aged 60, said: ?John never made a fuss. He trusted the system and it seems our trust in the NHS failed him.

?We will be launching a complaint to the Community Health Council. I feel so incensed and I feel that something has to be done to stop this from happening to someone else.

?He was my best friend. I now feel empty without him. I met him when I was 15 and we were married for 43 years.

?When you care for someone like we did for John, it is awful to watch his life ebb away. He deserved better than this and it is so unfair. People?s lives should not be a lottery.

?It had been 17 months and three weeks since he was first diagnosed with a leaking aortic valve. He should have been operated on much earlier and this shouldn?t happen to anyone.?

She said her husband?s condition had started to deteriorate in January and she had phoned Walsgrave Hospital in tears, begging for help

John Richardson, head of communications for University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, which runs Walsgrave, said Mr Clifford had come into Walsgrave as an emergency last week after being transferred from Warwick Hospital.

He said: ?The plan was to get him better so that he could have surgery but our efforts proved unsuccessful and in the end, very regrettably, the surgical team had to decide that he was just too ill for surgery.?

Mr Richardson said people on waiting lists were judged on clinical priority and admitted Mr Clifford had not been deemed serious enough to warrant moving along the list.

Mr Clifford?s funeral will be held tomorrow at the Lees Chapel in Lapworth at 2pm.